


may

by orphan_account



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, M/M, anime verse, weed references because im a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:28:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Where'll we go?"</p>
<p>"Finland."</p>
<p>"<i>Fin-</i>"</p>
<p>"What do you think I've been up to the last six months?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	may

**Author's Note:**

> sort of a sister fic to [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3622062)?? but in this one they live B)
> 
> im not sure how i feel about this one tho hm

Kaneki holds a shaking hand to Hide's heart, inhaling sharply as he felt the unsteady _thump, thump_. Hide's still alive, thank God, he'd only passed out, presumably from blood loss.

He scrambles to find something to stop the bleeding, to keep Hide alive for as long as possible until he gets him to the CCG, where (he hopes) they'd help him. There isn't much left that isn't in ashes, but he finds a sheet and some... period pads? Must've belonged to Touka, because she used to live here. Well, it'll be awkward, but pads are meant to hold in blood anyway, so he grabs them and quickly makes his way back to Hide, who's thankfully still breathing, and the fire hasn't gotten to him.

Kaneki opens a pad and stuffs it carefully into Hide's wound, stopping the blood flow, and drapes the sheet over Hide's body so that he wouldn't get too cold outside. Kaneki frowns; it makes him look like he's dead. He hates it. Nevertheless, he picks his best friend up bridal style, and exits quickly from the burning building.

He approaches the CCG's Shinigami, making sure Hide is still alive before setting him on the ground. Then he stands up and raised his hands in surrender.

Arima's expression is unreadable as he looks at Kaneki.

"You can do whatever you want with me," Kaneki says softly, hoping Arima hears, "but he's still alive, please make sure he stays that way." He indicates Hide, unconscious in front of him.

That's where Kaneki's memory cut off.

 

-

 

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Hide's head feels extremely heavy; just opening his eyelids feels like an enormous feat. He's so, so tired.

The last thing he remembers was confessing everything to Kaneki, most specifically that he knew, and it was okay. He was sure he was going to die then. Is he in a hospital room?

Is he alive because of Kaneki?

"You're finally awake," says a voice to his right. Hide moves his head ever so slightly so he could see the source of it; it's a young nurse with a small smile on her face. "It's been four days. You were sleeping like a log, the only way we knew you were alive was because of the heart monitor."

"F...four days...?" Hide's voice is hoarse and scratchy, and he breaks out in a coughing fit. When he recovers, he asks, "Where am I? Where's Kaneki?"

"You're in the CCG's hospital building," the nurse says kindly. "Kaneki's the eyepatched ghoul who brought you here, right? I'm afraid he's in Cochlea."

Hide's stunned. Did Kaneki turn himself in?

(In the back of his mind, he's grateful the nurse is being so kind talking about Kaneki, even though he's a ghoul and she's working for the CCG.)

"You need to rest," she says to him. "I'm sorry, I don't know the details about him."

As she leaves, Hide finds himself drifting off to sleep again, but he swears he heard the nurse say to someone else, "Period pads, what a ghoul..."

 

-

 

Hide is released from the hospital about ten days after the Anteiku raid. He barely has time to enjoy the sunshine again before he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

"Hello?" Hide asks cautiously; the call is from an unregistered number.

"Nagachika-san?" an unfamiliar voice asks.

"That's me, who is this?"

"This is the CCG. We'd like to speak to you." Hide's heart plummets. "You were the young assistant investigator who notified us of Aogiri's location, right? We'd like you here in room 420 of the CCG's headquarters, as soon as possible."

"Okay..." Hide can't say he isn't nervous as he hangs up and starts on his way to the CCG's HQ, which isn't far because he was just outside the hospital building.

On arrival he steps into the elevator, going up to the 4th floor. He finds room 420, and knocks.

"Come in," a low voice says on the other side of the door.

"S-sorry I'm not dressed more formally or anything, I was just released from the hospital..." Hide stutters when he enters.

"We know. It doesn't matter. Sit down." The voice that welcomed him belongs to a tall, muscled man with intimidatingly thick eyebrows and an equally thick beard. Hide can't take his eyes off those bushy-ass eyebrows.

"Sir, is this about Kaneki?" Hide asks tentatively.

"It's about you." The man's dark eyes bear into Hide, and he winces. If only the guy had thinner eyebrows, his stare wouldn't be so intimidating. "You aided a wanted ghoul."

Hide gulps. _Well, he was my best friend, it's not his fault he's a ghoul, I was bleeding a lot and I thought I was going to die anyway. I don't blame Kaneki, though, that was really great of him and I love him,_  he doesn't say. "Um..."

"We'd like to offer you a choice, Nagachika-san," the man says. Hide blinks.

"You can choose to be arrested for 20 or more years -" -Hide flinches- "- or you can become a ghoul investigator." The man keeps glaring at Hide. "It's your choice."

"I'll..."

Hide is formulating a plan in his mind, one he can only put into action if he chooses the latter option.

"I..." Hide gulps. "I'll go with the... the investigator option."

He thinks he can see a smirk behind the man's beard.

 

-

 

It's a month after the Anteiku raid, and Hide finally gets to visit Kaneki.

The last two weeks had been training, almost nonstop physical training. It was nothing like before the raid. His mentor, Mado Akira, had decided that after a month, she supposed she could let Hide visit his friend, and gotten a form signed to allow him to visit Cochlea.

Hide has trouble preventing himself from jumping up and dancing in joy when Akira tells him. He takes the paper and smiles widely. "Thank you, Mado-san," he says through his grin.

 

-

 

Kaneki doesn't know how long he's been trapped in this prison. The living conditions for ghouls in Cochlea got progressively worse as their ratings got higher. On the SS floor, all he had was a cold, concrete, windowless room with some vents that constantly blew out CRC gas. Oh, and a toilet and sink that had only freezing cold water. There was a not-soundprood window on one side which he could talk to potential visitors through. But that was it. Not even a blanket to keep him warm, not even a clock. He was so lonely and weak, and he was lucky if he got an hour of sleep, what with the cold, hard floor and the night terrors that kept him up anyway. Most of his time he spent in the corner, counting down from a thousand by sevens. It was the only way to keep him sane.

When he was told by a guard he had a visitor, he didn't get his hopes up. It was probably some investigator that wanted to question him. But when the door on the other side of the glass opens, and he looks up from his corner to see a head of blond hair, he finds himself running towards the window in disbelief.

The grinning blond is sitting in a chair on the other side with a little smile on his face.

"Hide?" Kaneki manages.

"Hey, Kaneki." Hide's voice is a little distorted by the glass in between them, but it's him. Kaneki breaks out in a grin for the first time in what seems like forever.

"They took care of you," he says softly, not daring to take his eyes off of Hide. "They kept you alive."

"Well, guess what, Kaneki?" Hide winks and pulls out an official-looking sheet of paper. "I can officially visit you every weekend!"

"H...how?"

"Since I aided a ghoul, my only choice was to go to prison or become an investigator." Hide makes a face. "But I guess I made the right choice, because they surely wouldn't let me visit you if I was in prison."

There's a silence.

"I'm sorry all this has happened, Hide," Kaneki says, looking away, and feeling tears welling up in his eyes. "If I-"

"Kaneki, when will you learn?" Hide huffs, and Kaneki looks up. "It's not always your fault. It was my choice to get involved in all this. Hell, I wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for you." Hide pouts. "Don't let the CCG make you believe that you're worth less than you are."

"Oh..."

"Don't worry, Kaneki. You're not gonna be here forever."

Kaneki doesn't know what he means by that.

 

-

 

Over the next six months, Hide barely gets any sleep. He spends all day training with Akira, or occasionally going on missions and during his free time, he worked on memorizing maps, analyzing classified documents, and researching other languages, among other things, and he can't get caught, either. For two hours every Sunday (because two hours was the maximum amount of time he was allowed to talk with a ghoul in Cochlea) he talks with Kaneki, trying to subtly drop hints about what he was planning.

One morning before training, Akira comments on Hide's health.

"You're a hard worker, Nagachika," she says, "but honestly, get some sleep. You look like a zombie. It's great that you're working so hard, but you _need sleep_."

"Yeah, okay," Hide says, not looking at her. She was damn observant, he'd have to be more careful.

He starts buying concealer.

 

-

 

Hide thinks he ought to be congratulated. If he doesn't fuck this up, he'll be able to flee Japan with Kaneki without a trace. He's gone over his plan many times in his head. He has one chance, and he's gonna take it tomorrow.

Everything is ready. _Just don't fuck this up._

As he sits on the roof and watches the sun set, he feels at peace.

_This is your decision._

 

-

 

Kaneki's trying to get himself to sleep at least a little when he hears glass shattering suddenly. He jumps up, startled, and looks around to see Hide. He's wearing his trademark grin on his face, and instead of the CCG uniform he usually wears when he visited Kaneki, he's wearing a dark gray hoodie with his hood up. It's very unlike Hide, but so is recklessly breaking into Cochlea. Okay, maybe if it's to rescue Kaneki.

"Hide?" Kaneki asks, slightly panicked. "Hide, there's cameras! You'll get caught in no time!"

"Nope," Hide grins, "no one realizes yet, but I hacked them. That old dud?" He indicates the camera fixed on the wall. "That's not recording a thing right now, and neither is any camera in the entire building. We'll just have to keep out of sight of the guards."

"You-"

"We don't have time to talk right now," Hide says, his voice suddenly becoming sharp. "We need to move, now."

 

-

 

"Where'll we go?"

"Finland."

" _Fin-_ "

"What do you think I've been up to the last six months? My Finnish isn't great, but I've forged some passports. You're Yamamoto Ken to the world now."

"You didn't tell me about any of this?"

"It's more satisfying to hear you react like this."

 

-

 

"I can't believe we pulled all this off," Kaneki sighs, tugging on his black wig.

"I planned it all," Hide says, grinning cheekily. "I didn't expect it to work out so well, though."

"Do you realize we're on a _plane_ to _Finland_ right now?"

"It's better than seeing you wallow around in misery in Cochlea for the rest of your life," Hide says seriously. "I could hardly bear seeing you so broken."

"Oh..." Kaneki sighs, resting his head on Hide's shoulder. "Thank you, Hide... for everything."

Kaneki's eyes are closed, so he can't see the furious blush on Hide's face.

 

-

 

"Hey, Kaneki?"

"Mmm?"

"Thanks for saving my life two years ago."

Kaneki smiles, something he's been doing a lot more in Finland than ever before. "I could say the same to you."

**Author's Note:**

> its kinda vague toward the end im sorry i tried
> 
> the guy with the bushy-ass eyebrows smokes weed every day and he specifically chose room 420


End file.
